By Jan Tousignant Santa Monica
Nov. 5 is a fresh start kind of day. It’s a day where voters of Santa Monica can thoughtfully choose “the first day of the rest of their lives” by the careful selection of future officials and initiatives on the ballot.
Our municipal elections are supposed to be non-partisan, so that the best person and/or the fairest proposal stands on their own merits to win the minds and hearts of the voter. But, this “non-partisan” option has long been absent from the terrain of our local government. We actually have created, in its place, an all consuming political party from the partisan seeds of rent control. It is called Santa Monica for Renter’s Rights — or SMRR. Although endemically composed of Democrats and Green party people, it is, nonetheless, a cult or master-minded political party, with power brokers running it in the back rooms... oops, I mean background of city policy making. And, this political party, sadly, is the only game in town.
Nothing close to SMRR has evolved, which is why everyone seeks their endorsement near election time. It’s like getting a blessing from the Pope to be included on their slate of proposed candidates. There are literally no viable second and third doors to choose from, when comparing the machinery and money already in place in the SMRR organization. Oh, yes, independents try to erect solid campaigns. Actually there have been many decent, qualified, HONEST, candidates who have run in the past — only to lose by a consistent margin of votes each election season. Music to the “Twilight Zone” is appropriate here.
Ironically, our city does not seem to be particularly happy under this one party dominance. People complain about our schools, overdevelopment, traffic slowing conditions, deepening shortfalls of city revenue and throngs of homeless people making Santa Monica their “new home away from home.” The so called “successful Third Street Promenade” has personally turned me off. Its retail stores, choreographed by SMRR heads, have attracted high-end money makers for the city, doing away with the warmth of what once was a small town congenial atmosphere. Now, it seems only strangers, teens and the homeless walk the Promenade.
I fled to Main Street for my “Cheers fix,” where you know people and store owners by their names. But, even that is now in jeopardy with the approval of the large development at the north end of Main Street, thanks to the SMRR-packed Planning Commission and city council. It’s like the creeping crud of glitzy commercialism is permeating all comfort zones. Any semblance of old town Santa Monica is being politically razed by SMRR. It’s almost laughable that this political machine cares so much about saving historical sites via “historical districts,” in lieu of what SMRR has done to the rest of this town.
In fact, the only consistent outcomes of all of SMRR “issues of the day” is powermongering — collecting more and more power in deceptive ways. They manufactured rent control, a political coup of sorts, that appealed to the demographics of a 70 percent renter-based town, in ’79. Now that rent control is no longer a central concern, they are warming up workers with their living wage siren, trying to shore up their base by thrusting unions into the mix. Just look at the mess of today’s West Coast long-shoremen, and the union’s attempts to featherbed by slow downs, and one can get a picture of Santa Monica labor disputes, in the future, if this measure is passed. And, Vivian Rothstein, the living wage PR person and SMRR higher up, is trying her best to engage your vote, while getting paid $65,000 along the way. Not bad.
Measure EE is the school bail out initiative. While appealing to parents and educators, it has another paid SMRR consultant, Dennis Zane, lurking in the back ground, and collecting $25,000 to hawk this issue, as he has done with the other local issues like SMC bond measures (Measure U) and the Madison Theater proposals. As far as I am concerned, just his involvement lowers the credibility of EE. “The sky is falling” rhetoric, in this case “education will fall,” if you don't pass this measure, just seems to be the same old SMRR tactic — sensationalize it and it will pass.
Just like I am angry at CEOs in this country, pulling one over on the less sophisticated, so am I tired of SMRR running this city like it was their own private enterprise. I don’t like slates. I am not comfortable with anybody having as much power as SMRR has to not only tell the electorate who they should vote for, but also pay their own to run the initiative process as well. I want ordinary people, using untainted, uncompromised, original ideas, to have a chance to be elected in this town. That is probably why I am voting for something SMRR strongly opposes, VERITAS. It is certainly not a perfectly put together initiative, but it certainly gives the “little people” of Santa Monica an alternative to being permanently trapped by the SMRR agenda. And, I also think it would give Santa Monica a chance to grow some new ideas, create fairness in neighborhoods, which in turn might start to heal some of the divisiveness created by a bitterly one-sided, monolithic political party like SMRR.
Oh, yes, I am also NOT voting for any candidate sponsored by SMRR. I have in the past, but not this election season. Instead, I am going to study the independents, and hope I come up with a few good men and women to handle the jobs, at large, who are as short on bias as they are long on integrity.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 3, 2002. Read the original PDF.